In this article, we'll be walking through how to claim your website on Google Merchant Center for Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce.
Already have your code snippet ready to go and need specifics for a certain provider? Jump to these quick links:
Prerequisites
You are on the Professional plan or above.
Learn more about the Professional plan here.
At least one active Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce integration is connected to your Thrive account.
Since customers will be checking out on your store, you'll need an active e-commerce integration with Thrive so we know where to send those potential customers.
A Google Merchant Center account.
Don't have one? No problem, we'll help you set one up here.
Claiming your website within Google's merchant center
Before Google can start listing any of your products on their channels, you need to claim ownership of your e-commerce website within your Merchant Center dashboard.
While logged into the Merchant Center, click the settings cog in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and select Business information, then the Website tab.
From here, enter the website address of the store you'll be listing products from and click Continue.
This article will cover verification through the most common method: adding an HTML tag to your website that Google can verify. On the modal that appears below where you entered your website address, select Add an HTML tag or upload an HTML file to your website
From here, based on the provider of your e-commerce store, you'll follow the relevant steps below for adding this HTML tag to your store and verifying your Google Merchant Center website.
Make sure to leave this tab open! Once you've taken the appropriate steps below you'll continue the verification process here.
Note: If your business has a website administrator, at this point you can copy the verification instructions into an email for your administrator to complete.
Verifying your Shopify store
Warning: The following steps will take you through editing your e-commerce theme code. Please be careful what you edit and make sure your theme is backed up in case any issues arise.
After you've gone through the above steps, you'll have a snippet of HTML that you need to add to your Shopify site resembling the following format:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." />
To add this to your Shopify store, first login to your administrative panel and navigate to Online Store -> Themes. Under your current theme, click Actions -> Edit code
Once you've done this, you'll be taken to Shopify's online code editor. Navigate to theme.liquid under the Layout section and paste the snippet of HTML into the file under the <head> section. Note that the specific line number you paste it onto does not matter, so long as it appears nested under the <head> element.
Afterward, click Save and you're all set! Navigate back to your merchant center tab and click Verify website to finish the verification process.
Related material: How to verify your site with Google (Shopify)
Verifying your WooCommerce store
Warning: The following steps will take you through editing your e-commerce theme code. Be careful what you edit and ensure your theme is backed up if any issues arise.
After you've gone through the above steps, you'll have a snippet of HTML that you need to add to your WooCommerce site resembling the following format:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." />
To add this to your WooCommerce store, first login to your administrative panel and navigate to Appearance -> Theme Editor
From here, scroll through the files under Theme Files until you find one named Theme Header (header.php) and select that file to edit. Paste your HTML snippet directly under <head> , and make sure you've copied the entire snippet:
Afterward, click Update File at the bottom of the page and you're all set! Navigate back to your merchant center tab and click Verify website to finish the verification process.
Verifying your BigCommerce store
Warning: The following steps will take you through editing your e-commerce theme code. Be careful what you edit and ensure your theme is backed up in the event that any issues arise.
After you've gone through the above steps, you'll have a snippet of HTML that you need to add to your BigCommerce site resembling the following format:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." />
To add this to your BigCommerce store, first login to your administrative panel and navigate to Storefront -> My Themes.
By default, BigCommerce won't let you modify a default theme. If you aren't using a customized theme already click Advanced -> Make a copy and use any name you'd like. For this example, we'll call our theme copy Cornerstone - Verified:
Next, under My Themes click the ... option and click Apply to make it your current theme:
Now that you have a customizable theme under your Current Theme, go to Advanced -> Edit Theme Files to open BigCommerce's file editor.
Navigate to templates -> layout -> base.html and paste your HTML code snippet directly under the <head> tag in the editor:
Afterward, click Save & Apply File and you're all set! Navigate back to your merchant center tab and click Verify website to finish the verification process.
*This feature is included on Professional plans and above.
To learn more about our plans and upgrade, click here.